Video Vault

Track and Trace

A new ISO standard, ISO 17367:2009, is intended to help manufacturers and distributors track products throughout the supply chain using radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. The document outlines standardized features for RFID tags.

Wyeth Pharmaceuticals's adoption of industrial vending in just two of the company’s production facilities is reportedly saving the company hundreds of thousands of dollars. This vending machine dispenses everything from personal protection equipment to mission-critical changeover and replacement machine parts. The results include decreased downtime, lower labor costs, increased production, and increased inventory control and management.

Pharmorx Security’s (Southborough, MA) name change to Covectra is part of a larger mission to address new and existing clients’ requirements for secure and comprehensive brand protection solutions. By combining covert and overt security features printed on products and packaging materials with the AuthentiTrack software platform, Covectra provides a complete portfolio of products and services to protect and enhance a product brand.

Better to begin now when you have time to learn and test, rather than when faced with a legislative deadline.

Editor's Note: While preparing January PMP News's Track and Trace column for the 5th year in a row, Nosco's Gregg Metcalf realized that the pharmaceutical industry has come full circle. His first few articles focused on anticounterfeiting, and then he shifted to track-and-trace and e-pedigree as retailers and legislators did. Given worldwide increases in counterfeiting, today's focus is again on anticounterfeiting along with serialization without pedigree. Read on for a quick recap of past events and for ideas on building your product-protection strategies for 2010.

Two sister companies, one with experience in information technology
and another with a history of providing pharmaceutical packaging inspection and security solutions, team up to bring efficiency to item-level serialization.

Coesia Group, controlling a multinational portfolio of automated machinery businesses in different industries, has combined the expertise of two of its sister companies, G.D and Laetus, to develop C-TTS, a track and trace solution for pharmaceutical packaging applications. With G.D’s knowledge of complex IT solutions in packaging machines and Laetus’ experience in packaging security solutions in the pharmaceutical sector, a competent team was established.

Simons Security Systems GmbH (Nottuln, Germany) recently released a new industry solution for legally binding product security and traceability of packaging. The Secupack system, through the combination of track and trace features, provides the traceability of packaging and products throughout the entire production and delivery process.

“Many anticounterfeit systems are on the market,” said Angelina Rayak, Sales Manager for anti-counterfeiting technologies at Simons Security Systems.

By adding a printing component, a company completes a track-and-trace suite.

By Anastasia Thrift

Inspection equipment company Optel Vision (Quebec City, QC, Canada) recently added a printing line to complete a track-and-trace suite for pharmaceutical and medical packaging. Calling it their Capture and Control (C&C) system, Optel works with pharma packagers to create serialization solutions that will secure lines via linear, 2-D, or Data Matrix bar codes.

NanoInk’s (Skokie, IL) brand-protection division, NanoGuardian, is partnering with SDI, a pharmaceutical and healthcare industry analysis company, to deliver its Closed-Loop Protection market-monitoring program. The program combines the on-dose authentication and tracing benefits of NanoGuardian’s NanoEncryption technology with a pharmacy-auditing program to identify counterfeit or illegally diverted pharmaceuticals entering the global supply chain.

In an effort to spur automatic identification technology adoption, AIM Global and AIM North America (Warrendale, PA) have launched a new membership and structure campaign. Called “Real Opportunities Today . . . Leadership for Tomorrow,” the campaign will offer collaborative membership between the two groups and conduct activities under the title AIM.

Previously, AIM North America and its parent organization AIM Global offered separate programs. The change means members of the groups can now refer to themselves as “Members of AIM.” AIM says this expands membership to small and large organizations with an interest in bar code, RFID, and RTLS technology.